The aim of the programme is to improve the employment opportunities of the Kosovar population and the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through sustainable development.
As part of this programme, Anteja ECG conducted a series of Value Chain Mapping Analyses in the Kosovar key sectors. These Value Chain Mapping Reports were intended to provide deep insights into four key industrial sectors and recommendations for the Ministry of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade (MIET) to design more tailor-made support schemes. Supported by the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, these support schemes aim to improve the overall competitiveness of the metal manufacturing, ICT, food and beverage as well as the chemical sector in Kosovo. More than 250 stakeholders were involved in these exercises by means of various interactive engagements. Anteja ECG was in charge of the design and implementation of the four value chain analyses.
Empowering Central and Eastern European countries to develop bioeconomy strategies and action plans
Funder: European Commission Call for proposal: HORIZON-CL6-2021-Governance-01-10, Horizon Europe Coordination and Support Action project Duration: 36 months (1 September 2022 – 30 September 2025) Overall budget and funding source: EUR 3.9 million This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101060280.
The European Green Deal has set Europe on its path to become the first climate neutral continent by 2050. Achieving green transition must be just, fair and inclusive. One of the seven core pathways to deliver on climate neutrality is the bioeconomy. The 2018 updated EU bioeconomy strategy has highlighted the relevance of developing national bioeconomy strategies and action plans to deploy a sustainable and circular bioeconomy across Europe considering economic, social and environmental aspects.
To date, there are still Member States, including many from Central and Eastern Europe that do not have a national bioeconomy strategy and action plan despite their high biomass resource base and new bioeconomy potential, although there are relevant regional initiatives to develop bioeconomy strategies.
The objective of CEE2ACT is to empower countries in Central Eastern Europe (Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) and beyond (Greece, Republic of Serbia) to develop circular bioeconomy strategies and action plans, through knowledge transfer and innovative governance models, to achieve better-informed decision-making processes, societal engagement, and innovation, building on the practice of experienced countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden). Knowledge transfer and inspiration in creative formats that address the motivations, needs and knowledge gaps of each CEE2ACT target country will be realized through the CEE2ACT National Bioeconomy Hubs.
A bottom-up approach will be applied throughout the project activities, tackling specific knowledge gaps and shortcomings of the top-down conventional approach, building closer interconnections between actors across public institutions, private sector, industry, energy, SMEs, feedstock providers (e.g., waste, side streams, farmers, foresters, fishermen), academia and research, NGOs, CSOs in the target countries.
To achieve this, a baseline assessment will be carried out, and stakeholder engagement activities will be implemented ensuring the active participation of all relevant stakeholders. Digital solutions for sustainable governance will be created, supporting the exchange of best practices on technology transfer, and building the capacities of the stakeholders to develop bottom-up bioeconomy strategies.
Findings will be used and disseminated through practical tools, guidelines, and policy recommendations to support beneficiary countries to develop flexible and inclusive bioeconomy strategies and action plans, boosting societal engagement in the countries’ transition toward a circular bioeconomy.
Coordinator: María Beatriz Rosell, Senior Project Manager, Geonardo Environmental Technologies Ltd., Email: maria.beatriz.rosell@geonardo.com Media & Communications: Nathalie Bargues, Project Manager, Greenovate!Europe, Email: n.bargues@greenovate-europe.eu Upcoming website: www.cee2act.eu Social media channels: LinkedIn and Twitter
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of the global trade networks and profoundly disrupted global value chains. Due to travel restrictions, many companies had to rely on their digital sales and communication channels to be able to maintain their business activities. At Anteja, a consultancy firm predominantly based on international trade, our daily business was significantly affected by the disruptions caused by the pandemic. The aim of this project was to implement new digital solutions to increase sales and gain new customers on the European and East African markets.
The project results are:
Our promotional and educational video for our digital solution phy2app (video link) supports our clients using phy2app and has so far 250 views. It supports our sales activities and we use it to demonstrate the tool at webinars, conferences and client meetings. The video was shared more than 2000 times. With knowledge gained through the project, we have expanded the series of educational phy2app videos and have integrated them in our solution. They have so far reached more than 1500 views.
Our Anteja Africa webpage helps us to generate new sales leads for phy2app, promotes our articles and our clients. So far, it has more than 25.000 views. Through the webpage we have gained interest from more than 200 potential clients and found 2 new project partners, with whom we have gained a significant sales increase.
The operation has been selected for co-financing under the Call for proposals for co-financing digitisation of sales channels and presentation and marketing materials for promotion on foreign markets.
The investment is co-funded by the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The upcoming European Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive will require large EU companies to identify and prevent, eliminate or mitigate adverse impacts of their activities on human rights and environment in their entire global value chains. Within the project “E-business to support the creation of sustainable and transparent value chains between Europe and Africa” we aim to further digitalize our company, launch the phy2app platform and support EU businesses in the creation of sustainable and transparent value chains between Europe and Africa in light of the upcoming legislation.
The aim of the project is to upgrade our digitalisation processes in order to speed up the interactions with our international customers and partners and to elaborate a digital marketing and sales approach within the following activities:
electronic exchanges between partners
creation of digital marketing materials for trade fairs
website upgrades
product-sales video
competence training.
This project will enable us to offer highly competitive services to our existing customers, to expand our business in Europe in food, natural cosmetics and natural pharmaceutical sectors, to strengthen our presence in the African markets and increase our global reach. Some expected project results are:
a portal to enable login via secure connection
successful participation at the Biofach digital trade fair
improved website in German and English
product-sales video in English
increased skills of the management and staff.
The investment is co-funded by the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
With corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe and consumer demands for greater supply chain transparency, large companies are compelled to address negative human rights and environmental impacts in their global supply chains. These companies need to be able to collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in real time. INATrace, an open source traceability system based on blockchain technology, was developed by Anteja on behalf of the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA) to make agricultural commodities traceable from production up to the final product. It not only promotes trust and security between trading partners but also enhances the efficiency of supply chains, which in the long run should increase farmers’ incomes and a contribute to women’s empowerment. INATrace helps European companies collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in light of the corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe. It is free to use, adaptable, transferable and scalable.
After successful development and implementation of INATrace in Rwanda (see our project’s Part 1 and Part 2), INA commissioned the implementation of INATrace also for an upscale, focusing on Honduran coffee producers exporting to the European market.
Together with GIZ Honduras we’ve scaled up the system to a robust multi-tenant system and implemented INATrace in Honduras. We conducted a value chain analysis and mapping for the Honduran producer organisations, export companies and trading partners in close collaboration with local consultants to get a better understanding of the requirements for the IT development. Next, we managed the technical system adaptations according to local requirements and circumstances. Afterwards, we conducted the train-the-trainer sessions to build local capacities. We assisted the local consultants in onboarding new INATrace users and in preparation and implementation of user training. Based on the user feedback in both origin and importing countries, the software was further optimised to the local context.
INATrace connects 3 producer organizations in Honduras with their in-country exporters and buyers in Germany and the UK, enabling full blockchain traceability from the moment farmers deliver their coffee to the processing locations until the sales-ready roasted and packaged product.
With corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe and consumer demands for greater supply chain transparency, large companies are compelled to address negative human rights and environmental impacts in their global supply chains. These companies need to be able to collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in real time. INATrace, an open source traceability system based on blockchain technology, was developed by Anteja on behalf of the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA) to make agricultural commodities traceable from production up to the final product. It not only promotes trust and security between trading partners but also enhances the efficiency of supply chains, which in the long run should increase farmers’ incomes and a contribute to women’s empowerment. INATrace helps European companies collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in light of the corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe. It is free to use, adaptable, transferable and scalable.
We implemented INATrace to several new coffee farming cooperatives that work with RWASHOSCCO and added additional buyers to the system that can now enjoy the full blockchain traceability of the coffee from the moment the coffee is brought to the cooperatives’ coffee washing station until the product is roasted, packaged and ready to sell.
Our user-centered development approach included implementing user feedback from the previous project phase to make the software more intuitive, including new features that were suggested by the cooperative managers, such as exporting of reports, import of data from previously used systems, increased system configurability regarding company-specific processes, facilities and company-internal system access rights, automatic daily currency exchange rate updates etc.
With corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe and consumer demands for greater supply chain transparency, large companies are compelled to address negative human rights and environmental impacts in their global supply chains. These companies need to be able to collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in real time. INATrace, an open source traceability system based on blockchain technology, was developed by Anteja on behalf of the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA) to make agricultural commodities traceable from production up to the final product. It not only promotes trust and security between trading partners but also enhances the efficiency of supply chains, which in the long run should increase farmers’ incomes and a contribute to women’s empowerment. INATrace helps European companies collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in light of the corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe. It is free to use, adaptable, transferable and scalable.
create transparency between the actors along the supply chain in regard to supply chain processes, product quality and prices paid to local producers
make this information available also to end consumers through a scannable QR code on the coffee packages.
Through efficiency gains along the value chain and a greater awareness, an increased farmers’ income and a contribution to women empowerment is intended in the long run.
Our work included technical implementation, testing, software maintenance and preparation of training materials and documentation. First, the value chain was mapped from women coffee growers to end coffee consumers in Germany to define the visual prototype concept and prioritization of functionality. Technical implementation included several rounds of iterations to develop the MVP prototype, beta version, and the final solution. The final result is an open-source blockchain-based track and trace system. The system provides blockchain verified information on provenance and sustainability attributes to members of the value chain and consumers. The application allows German companies to demonstrate their compliance with the upcoming EU and German due diligence legislations.
Joining Ugandan moringa producers to make Uganda a global hotspot for high quality and transparent moringa products.
The cluster aims to group the Ugandan moringa producers, who work with thousands of smallholder farmers and produce high-quality and transparent moringa products, in order to make Uganda a global hotspot for high quality and transparent moringa products.
Opportunities for digitalization in natural fibres value chains.
Duration Start date: 1.8.2019
End date: 31.1.2021
Funding/Budget
Total cost: 233.588,89 EUR Amount of ARPAF co-financing: 210.230,00 EUR
Funding: co-financed by the European Parliament through the Alpine Region Preparatory Action Fund (ARPAF) Coordinator: Schweizerische Arbeitsgemeinschaft für die Berggebiete – SAB
Partnership: – BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg GmbH (Germany) – Department for Economic Development, Research and Labour of the Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy) – Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science University of Maribor (Slovenia) – Anteja ECG (Slovenia) – Hub Innovazione Trentino – Fondazione (Italy) – Ecoplus, the Business Agency of Lower Austria (Austria)
The aim of the Smart SMEs project is to understand to what extent SMEs that produce, process and apply natural fibres use digitalization tools and approaches. The project will also evaluate obstacles that prevent SME’s from exploiting the full potential of digital solutions. An international consortium for the project has been formed, comprising the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science University of Maribor and partners from Italy, Lower Austria, Germany, Slovenia and Switzerland.
Every SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) routinely uses email addresses, but digitalization now offers enterprises a whole raft of solutions to make life easier and business more profitable – from electronic document management systems, promoting goods and services on social media to eCommerce and Big Data. Digitalization measures are only successful when company managers want and support them. SME’s, however, tend to have small management teams that are overwhelmed by other tasks, leaving them little time to identify and use the potential offered by digitalization. Businesses in rural areas have the additional problem of often unreliable internet connections.
The Smart SMEs project will contribute to finding solutions to overcome existing barriers. In addition to this, Anteja ECG together with BIOPRO, will organize and host a Policy Action Forum to bring policy makers from different sectors (digitalization, rural development and bioeconomy) together to begin sharing experiences and to validate the roadmap.
The project will be specifically focusing on enterprises in biobased value chains that produce, process and apply natural fibre-based materials, both cultivated and recycled from biological waste. The project is therefore tackling the idea of sustainable transformation in the Alpine region through the bioeconomy concept.
A study identifying opportunities and constraints for moringa production in the refugee-hosting areas in the West Nile region, Uganda, and key success factors required to export processed moringa products locally and internationally.
This study identifies the opportunities and constraints for rolling out moringa production in the West Nile region in Uganda and key success factors required to export processed moringa products locally and internationally.It helps to identify sourcing models that bring value to private firms, the refugee hosting communities, and to the refugees themselves. It points out a viable option of rolling out commercial production and processed moringa products, including refugee hosting districts. The final report outlines investments and competitiveness initiatives needed to translate the highest market requirements into production and process capabilities needed to expand the export of moringa processed products and encourage the private sector’s engagement in refugee-hosting areas.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Essential website cookies:
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our Websites and to use some of its features, such as access to secure areas.
cookie name: moove_gdpr_popup, expires: 1 year, description: This cookie rememberers when you click "Agree" for cookie banner at the bottom
cookie name: __tlbcpv, expires: 1 year, description: Used by sites created with WordPress to check whether a browser has cookies enabled. Expires after a session is ended.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
3rd Party Cookies
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
cookie name: _ga_"code" and _ga, expires: 2 year, description: Two cookies that are a product of Google Analytics
Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!
